If you lock your keys in your car when you’re near home, you may come out relatively unscathed. Hopefully, someone else is either in or can get into your house, grab your spare set of keys (you have and know where your spare set of car keys are, right?) and bring them to you.
When you’re out of town and driving a rental car, it’s another story.
Here are some options if it ever happens to you…
See if the state’s free roadside assistance can help
Some states offer free roadside assistance. Can’t hurt to ask, right?
Call the rental car company’s roadside assistance number
When you rent your car, you usually should get the option of various upsells. One of them is usually insurance for roadside assistance. If you opt-in (it only costs a few dollars per day), you can call, and they’ll help you unlock your car to get the key. They can also help you with a dead battery, flat tire, etc.
There are some downsides to this option. With rare exceptions, there’s no guarantee of how long the roadside assistance will take to arrive. They may also charge extra for problems the driver caused, such as running out of gas or (hello!) locking your keys in your car. But it’s still an option.
Use your own membership
If you have roadside assistance from membership with AAA, AARP, Urgently, Verizon, etc., now could be the perfect time to use it.
Check your credit card
Several credit cars out there offer roadside assistance, either as a perk of being a cardholder or with a nominal fee per incident. Check your benefits.
Pay-for-use
HONK roadside assistance is a program similar to AAA, AARP, etc., except with no membership. If you have a problem, you can contact them via their app. Prices start at $49 per visit and go higher, depending on the problem.
*** Feature Photo (cropped): U.S. Air Force by Airman 1st Class Nathan Lipscomb
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